Obamacare subsidies that have dominated the conversation on Capitol Hill are set to expire after Congress failed to act, but a cohort of bipartisan senators are quietly working to find a solution for when lawmakers return next year.

It has engulfed Congress since September and played a starring role in the longest-ever government shutdown. And both Republicans and Democrats tried, and failed, to pass their partisan plans to either extend or replace the Biden-era enhanced tax credits.

They are guaranteed to expire, and millions of Americans who use the subsidies are set to experience hikes to their out-of-pocket costs for healthcare that can vary widely depending on the state.

Still, some in Congress haven’t given up on the issue.

Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, held bipartisan confabs last week as lawmakers readied to leave Washington, D.C., to hash out a framework for an Obamacare fix that could meet the desires of both sides of the aisle.

There are several political landmines that the group will have to overcome, like Democrats’ demands for a relatively clean, multiyear extension of the subsidies and Republicans’ desires to add income caps and anti-fraud measures.

‘We have some momentum to enact a bipartisan bill that includes reforms,’ Collins said. ‘As you know, Senator Moreno and I convened an ideologically diverse group of both Democratic and Republican senators who met for nearly two hours on Monday night, and we’re now working on drafting a specific bill to incorporate those conversations that will include reforms as well as the two-year extension.’

The plan has yet to see the light of day, but Collins and Moreno both already have a public proposal, as do several other lawmakers in the upper chamber.

Their original plan, released earlier this month, would extend the subsidies by two years, put an income cap onto the subsidies for households making up to $200,000 and eliminate zero-cost premiums as a fraud preventive measure by requiring a $25 minimum monthly payment.

That initial offering could give a glimpse into the final product, but there are still hurdles to getting a bill on the floor that could pass.

Namely, Senate Republicans are largely against any kind of extension to the subsidies without major reforms and a built-in off-ramp to wean off the credits, which they say are rife with fraud and funnel money directly to insurance companies rather than patients.

There’s also another wrinkle in the House, where Democrats and a handful of Republicans rebelled to force a vote on their own extension to the subsidies. That bill is expected to get a vote next month.

Lawmakers see it as changing the dynamic of negotiations in the Senate, but whether it ever makes it to a vote in the upper chamber is an open question.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. ‘We’ll obviously cross that bridge when we come to it.’

Some Republicans in the upper chamber see the momentum building in the House as a pressure point on them that could further drive the conversation around the subsidies and, more broadly, healthcare.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said, ‘It will apply pressure on us, which isn’t a bad thing.’

‘I’m ready to start talking about healthcare at any time,’ Kennedy said. ‘I just don’t, I mean, I’m a pragmatist. I live in the real world, and I just don’t see a lot of appetite to make reforms. I just don’t — I see the vast majority of my Democratic colleagues just want an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies.’

And Senate Democrats welcome the development, given that the House’s plan mirrors their own, three-year extension of the subsidies, which already failed in the upper chamber earlier this month.

‘Well, it seems to me the basic proposition is, is it progress or not? And I think it is, because what we have felt all along is the only timely tool is the tax credits,’ Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said.

As President Donald Trump rolls out his TrumpRx proposal to cut prescription drug prices, economists are raising questions about what happens when prices are capped and whether short-term savings for consumers come at the expense of future medical breakthroughs.

On Friday, Trump announced deals with nine pharmaceutical companies to lower prices on certain medications for Americans, along with $150 billion in promised new investments in domestic manufacturing and pharmaceutical research.

The announcement builds on the administration’s Trump Rx initiative, a government-run portal designed to steer consumers toward lower-cost prescription drugs offered directly by manufacturers. The program is central to Trump’s effort to tie U.S. drug prices to those paid in other wealthy countries, a policy known as ‘most favored nation’ pricing.

But economists caution that price-lowering agreements don’t eliminate costs and often shift them elsewhere, particularly into reduced drug development, delayed innovation, or higher prices in other parts of the market.

Michael Baker, director of healthcare policy at the American Action Forum, said government price setting shifts costs rather than eliminating them.

‘At the most basic level, government price setting only limits what patients pay for a drug — usually reflected in an out-of-pocket or co-insurance payment,’ Baker said. ‘This does nothing to address the overall cost of the drug, which someone still has to pay, nor does it lower the cost associated with development.’

As a result, Baker said, patients ultimately bear those costs through tighter coverage rules, fewer treatment options or reduced future innovation.

‘Patients will experience far less of the crown jewel of the U.S. healthcare system that they are currently accustomed to receiving,’ he added.

Economists say the effects of permanent price caps would also be felt upstream, in research and development.

‘We know for sure that if drug prices are capped permanently below the levels the firm would have set, that will lead to lower incentives for R&D to discover new drugs and bring them to market,’ explained Mark V. Pauly, professor of healthcare management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Pauly added that the impact is expected to be negative, but its scale — including how many drugs might never be developed and their potential value — remains highly uncertain.

‘I do not know the answer, but I know for sure no one else does either,’ he added.

Others argue the administration’s approach avoids the most damaging forms of price control.

Ed Haislmaier, an expert in healthcare policy and markets at The Heritage Foundation, said recent agreements appear to involve companies trading lower prices for benefits such as expanded market access or relief from other costs, including tariffs.

‘In such cases, companies are likely calculating that revenue losses from lower prices will be offset by revenue gains from more sales,’ Haislmaier told Fox News Digital.

‘The kind of government price controls that are most damaging to innovation are ones that limit the initial price a company can charge for a new product. That is the situation in some countries, but fortunately not yet the in the United States,’ he added.

Ryan Long, Paragon’s director of congressional relations and a senior research fellow, suggested that pricing pressure abroad could force foreign governments to shoulder a greater share of drug development costs.

Long said this strategy would lead ‘to lower prices for American consumers without sacrificing U.S. leadership in biopharmaceutical innovation that leads to new treatments and cures.’

Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest is very much like a circus, and I mean that in the best possible way. A circus can travel anywhere, put up its tents and put on a show.

The scale of last weekend’s event in Phoenix was nothing short of monumental, with 31,000 in attendance. That isn’t so far off of the estimated 50,000 souls who went to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

To put it bluntly, TPUSA, along with other organizations, are capable of producing a much-needed midterm convention and a city like Phoenix, which hosted the conservative confab admirably, is exactly where it should be held.

As I’ve written in this column before, a midterm GOP conventionmidterm GOP convention, though a tad unconventional as a concept, is exactly what Republicans need to put Trump and his policy wins front and center before the electorate.

John and Lucy, a couple in their 40s who I met at the event, told me it was their first AmFest.

‘The energy is amazing,’ Lucy said. ‘I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect this.’

John concurred, saying, ‘This is like a rock concert, fireworks and loud music, I think it gets everyone pumped up.’

The atmosphere at AmFest was a whizzing and whirring technicolor explosion of light and sound, all resounding toward the goal of forwarding the conservative movement.

There is little doubt that 10 minutes at a pulsating and intense live event like Amfest – or a Trump rally – is worth 10 days of on-screen ads. It hits attendees in each of their five senses, and 50,000 may not sound like much, but that’s a veritable army to send back home in an off-year election.

One eager young conservative I met, Matt, who is studying finance in grad school and sports what might now be called the TPUSA mustache, told me, ‘I’d totally go to a midterm convention. Hell, I’d just go for the parties.’

That may sound a bit shallow to some, but it also sounds like exactly the kind of positive energy that a winning political movement needs.

When it comes to the question of where to hold a midterm convention, Phoenix can teach would-be convention planners a lot about the key question of location, location, location.

In places like New York City or Chicago, AmFest would have brought out hundreds of protesters, including many of the dangerous Antifa variety. Even vastly smaller events like a recent Mom’s For Liberty conference in Philadelphia attracted angry mobs.

In Phoenix, I never saw more than a dozen or so, and they were far more silly than menacing.

It’s worth noting that the local news channels did choose to focus almost as much attention on this bedraggled band of apparently unemployed naysayers as they did the tens of thousands inside the event.

Funny that.

But around the clean and very pretty downtown of soft light and perfect temperatures, one felt little to no resentment or pushback at the sudden flood of red MAGA hats and sparkly Trump outerwear. Everything was cool.

I asked one of my Uber drivers, a longtime Phoenix resident, why he thought the city was so welcoming in this way.

‘Nobody is uptight about politics. Everyone has weird ideas, we have weird politicians,’ he told me, laughing at his own joke for moment before adding, ‘It’s always been like this.’

Phoenix is not the only prime location for a midterm convention. Oklahoma City is another, as is Nashville. These are thriving places with better than average governance that truly do highlight the accomplishments of the Trump administration.

JD VanceJD Vance told the crowd at AmFest, ‘Why do we penalize corporations that ship American jobs overseas? Because we believe in the inherent dignity of human work and every person who works a good job in this country.’

The best place to sell that very popular message is in the smaller American cities where the jobs are being created, not one of the great metropolises still clinging to the dream that one day everyone can just work for the government.

As of now, the GOP has somewhere just north of seven months to put together a midterm convention, but the good news is that it is also flush with campaign cash. And the conservative movement has organizations like TPUSA that are capable of coming together to pull it off.

If Republicans want to hold onto Congress and give Trump a runway for his final two years, then their first priority for the coming fall should be to bring the circus back to town.

Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska announced on Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with metastatic stage-four pancreatic cancer, candidly calling it ‘a death sentence.’

‘This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,’ Sasse wrote in a post on X.

‘Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do,’ he continued.

Sasse, who is just 53 years old, noted, ‘I’ve got less time than I’d prefer.’ 

But he also expressed his eternal hope, noting that he is a Christian.

‘As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come,’ he wrote. 

‘Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say ‘hope’ when what we mean is ‘optimism.’ To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son,’ he noted.

‘Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet,’ he wrote.

Sasse served in the Senate from early 2015 through early 2023, then went on to serve as president of the University of Florida.

Last year he stepped down from the helm of the university, pointing to his wife’s epilepsy diagnosis.

‘My wife Melissa’s recent epilepsy diagnosis and a new batch of memory issues have been hard, but we’re facing it together,’ he noted in explaining his move last year. ‘Our two wonderful daughters are in college, but our youngest is just turning 13. Gator Nation needs a president who can keep charging hard, Melissa deserves a husband who can pull his weight, and my kids need a dad who can be home many more nights. I need to step back and rebuild more stable household systems for a time.’

Vice President JD Vance was among those who responded to Sasse’s grim cancer announcement on Tuesday.

‘I’m very sorry to hear this Ben. May God bless you and your family,’ Vance wrote.

Sasse noted in his message, ‘I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

‘But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given’ (Isaiah 9),’ he wrote.

For years, Washington has spoken about reducing its Middle East footprint, yet analysts told Fox News Digital that 2025 proved the opposite: American force — not retreat — reshaped the region.

Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), said the past year confirmed a long-standing strategic lesson. ‘2025 underscored what Middle East watchers have long known, and U.S. policymakers never seemed to want to admit: that strength is the currency of the realm and there is no substitute for U.S. leadership,’ he said.

Israeli political analyst Nadav Eyal said the shift was unmistakable. ‘What we have seen in 2025 is an increased role of the United States, rather than a withdrawal,’ Eyal said. ‘It delivered a hostage deal and a ceasefire in Gaza. It brought a certain level of stability in Syria. We see increased cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.’

‘The idea that the U.S. is out of the Middle East is just out the window,’ he added.

Gaza: The ceasefire and the hostages

During 2025, the Trump administration brokered a ceasefire that ended the two-year war in Gaza and returned all Israeli hostages except for the body of Ran Gvili, which still remains in Hamas’ hands. The deal was initially met with deep skepticism inside Israel. 

President Donald Trump traveled to both Israel, where he addressed the Knesset, and Cairo to finalize the agreement, coordinating with Arab leaders and mediators in a complex process that included an exchange of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons for hostages.

‘There is absolutely no doubt that without President Trump’s intervention, this could have lasted much longer, or maybe not have ended at all, or ended in tragedy,’ Eyal said, adding that the administration fundamentally changed what had been considered possible.

‘He expanded the realm of possibilities,’ Eyal said. ‘If someone had told us six months earlier that this would be the framework of the deal, and that all the living hostages would be back home within 72 hours, we would have said it’s a great idea, but Hamas would never agree.’

According to Eyal, the breakthrough came from Israeli military pressure combined with U.S. insistence and regional coordination. ‘The military pressure put by Israel, enabled by the White House, together with the White House’s insistence and the enlistment of Qatar and Turkey, is what made the breakthrough,’ he said.

Misztal also argued that the outcome was not the result of diplomacy alone. ‘The relative calm that the region is now enjoying, after two years of war, is not the result of diplomacy, which failed on its own to stop Iran’s nuclear advance or convince Hamas to return Israeli hostages,’ Misztal said. ‘It is the result of Israeli and U.S. willingness to use force, and do so together in pursuit of common objectives.’

‘Operations Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer, coupled with the Israeli strike in Doha, unlocked the path to peace,’ he added.

The ceasefire remains fragile but intact, with the U.S. now deeply involved in shaping the postwar phase in Gaza.

Regional shockwaves

On Dec. 8 last year, after Israel defeated Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed, signaling a dramatic shift in the regional balance of power.

That momentum carried into 2025. Operation Rising Lion known as the 12-day war, underscored Israel’s air superiority, with Israeli aircraft striking Iranian military infrastructure and eliminating senior IRGC commanders.

The campaign also highlighted the depth of U.S.-Israel coordination, culminating in a U.S. strike that targeted Iran’s nuclear program and curtailed Tehran’s ability to support its proxies.

Eyal said Iran now faces a period of profound uncertainty. ‘Iran will, without doubt, try to rebuild its influence after its proxy system was shattered,’ he said. ‘It was defeated in war with Israel and lost most of its nuclear program.’

Two questions now dominate. ‘Can Iran rebuild its alliances, its prestige and its sources of power, like the nuclear program or air defenses, and stabilize itself again as a regional power?’ Eyal asked. ‘The deeper question,’ he added, ‘is what happens to the regime.’

He described Iran as increasingly unstable, with a devastated economy and growing public discontent. ‘It seems like almost everything is ripe for a substantial change in Iran,’ he said. ‘Whether the Islamic Republic can survive without significant reform, or whether there will be a coup or counterrevolution, will take us well into 2026.’

‘The sands of the Middle East are always shifting’: What to expect in 2026

Eyal said the past year forced a reckoning about Hamas’ future. ‘In 2025, Israelis, and to a certain extent countries in the Middle East, woke up from a fantasy that Hamas would cease to exist completely as a functioning body,’ he said.

‘Everybody understands there will be some sort of presence of Hamas, and unfortunately, they will hold some sort of armed power,’ Eyal added. ‘The question is, to what level can you reduce it?’

At the same time, he stressed the scale of Hamas’ losses. ‘In 2025 they suffered tremendous defeats and were wiped out as a functioning military body,’ Eyal said. ‘This is the year in which it happened.’

‘Even after losing half of Gaza, with Gaza devastated, and the hostages returned, they are still functioning as a military organization,’ he added. ‘That means they are incredibly resistant or flexible.’

Misztal warned that the calm will not hold without sustained U.S. engagement. ‘The sands of the Middle East are always shifting,’ he said. ‘Today’s calm will not last without consistent effort applied to uphold it.’

He warned that 2026 could see renewed pressure from multiple fronts. ‘Adversaries will seek to reassert themselves and find new advantages,’ Misztal said. ‘Iran will test the boundaries of U.S. and Israeli patience and ISIS or other Sunni extremists may seek a spectacular attack to mark their comeback.’

‘These will all be tests for the U.S. appetite to continue applying the ‘peace through strength’ approach,’ Misztal said. ‘If Washington takes its eyes off the region, the progress of the last year might quickly be lost.’

The Trump administration is dropping the hammer on cheap imports of disposable food containers from China and Vietnam, announcing massive trade penalties that experts say will lead to safer products while simultaneously protecting U.S. companies from unfair competition. 

‘America continues to thrive when fair competition occurs,’ attorney Yohai Baisburd of Cassidy Levy Kent, counsel to the American Molded Fiber Coalition, told Fox News Digital Tuesday. ‘The Trump Administration is using every tool in the toolbox to enforce U.S. trade laws and cheaters beware because they are coming after you.’ 

Baisburd, whose legal background focuses on trade litigation, was reacting to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announcing recently that its board voted to rule that U.S. industry is materially injured by importing ‘thermoformed molded fiber products from China and Vietnam.’ Baisburd argued on behalf of U.S. companies as the International Trade Commission considered the case. 

Thermoformed molded fiber products are common food containers — including disposable bowls, plates, cups and containers for ready to make meals or take-out containers — made from natural fibers and recycled products, such as wood pulp. The fibers are turned to pulp before they’re molded, and then shaped using heat and pressure. 

The U.S. market has been flooded with such products from China and Vietnam, with the nations ‘dumping’ the containers at unfairly low prices that affect American businesses, according to the ITC. 

Following the vote from the ITC, the Commerce Department will issue final antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duty orders on those imports from China and Vietnam. Antidumping and countervailing duties are special trade penalties — in addition to typical tariffs — that the U.S. imposes on imports found to be unfairly underpriced in order to level the playing field for American companies.

The new orders are expected in the coming weeks, with ITC expected to release its report by Jan. 23. 

The duties will include an upward of 540% tax on certain Chinese producers — including a 477%-plus tax for ‘dumping’ alone — and a 260%-plus tax on Vietnamese producers of the thermoformed molded fiber packaging products, ITC data shows.

‘The ITC vote will give the U.S. industry at least five years of duties on unfairly traded products from China and Vietnam,’ Baisburd said. ‘The ITC confirmed that the U.S. industry is severely injured by the corrosive impact of Chinese and Vietnamese imports. The ITC also authorized retroactive duties on Vietnamese imports.  This is only one of a handful of times they have done so in the past 25 years, sending a message to importers that they cannot surge into the U.S. market to try to get ahead of potential duties.’ 

Baisburd said the upcoming duties will ‘level the playing field’ for U.S. industry against cheap imports. 

‘U.S. workers/companies can compete against anyone, anywhere. What they can’t do is outcompete Chinese and Vietnamese government subsidies that violate U.S. trade laws. The duties allow U.S. manufacturers to reinvest in their workers, operations, technology, because they can now compete on a level playing field,’ he said. 

The duty orders are separate from the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign nations, Fox News Digital learned. The tariffs are subject to change and negotiation, while the duties are legally binding trade enforcement mechanisms based on investigative findings by the U.S. Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission, and enforced by Border Patrol. The duties are applicable for the next five years minimum and are not subject to presidential discretion, Fox News Digital learned. 

Other presidential administrations have used antidumping and countervailing duties to level the playing field for U.S. companies, including the Biden administration touting in 2024 that it leveled more than 30 new antidumping and countervailing duties on steel-related products alone. 

Baisburd argued that the Trump administration broadened its tool chest for an all-encompassing approach to protecting U.S. manufacturing. 

‘The Trump administration is taking advantage of all the enforcement tools available across the federal government to support U.S. manufacturing.  We are seeing increased customs enforcement (both civil and criminal), a new DOJ Trade Fraud Taskforce, and greater scrutiny of supply chain shifts that circumvent duties,’ the attorney said. 

In addition to business concerns about the Asian nations boxing out the U.S. market for food service containers, health concerns also have simmered. China and Vietnam have been identified as nations that produce containers with ‘forever chemicals,’ or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs). An ITC report published in 2024 found that while some foreign nations claim products are PFAs-free, studies indicate that it is not always true, while the U.S. ‘generally produces PFA-free products.’

The vote marks the third recent trade ruling that affects disposable food service containers. The U.S. Department of Commerce ITC issued antidumping and countervailing duties on disposable aluminum containers, pans, trays and lids imported from China and elsewhere, as well as leveling antidumping and countervailing duties on low-cost white paper plates from China, Thailand and Vietnam in March. 

The Department of Justice warned Tuesday that some documents in the latest batch of files it published related to Jeffrey Epstein included false and unverified information about President Donald Trump.

The DOJ wrote in a statement that the material included ‘untrue and sensationalist claims’ about the president that the FBI received ahead of the 2020 election.

‘To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,’ the DOJ wrote on social media, adding that it published the documents because of its ‘commitment to the law and transparency.’

The documents included an email sent by an unnamed federal prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 7, 2020, saying Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times in the 1990s. Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell accompanied Trump on some of the flights, and two of the flights included passengers who were ‘possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,’ the prosecutor wrote.

The U.S. attorney’s office ‘didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road,’ the prosecutor wrote. 

The documents also indicated a number of tips that were provided to the FBI about Trump’s alleged involvement with Epstein in the early 2000s. Trump has said he ended his friendship with Epstein before Epstein faced charges. It is unclear what was done with the information provided in the documents, or whether any of it was corroborated or used in the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell.

The DOJ has been sharing on a public website since Friday tens of thousands of pages of files related to Epstein’s and Maxwell’s sex-trafficking cases. Maxwell was found guilty in 2021 of trafficking minors, while Epstein died in 2019 in prison by suicide, authorities say.

Among the files was also a letter Epstein appeared to have written to former physician Larry Nassar, a convicted child molester, that was postmarked three days after Epstein died and referenced Trump.

‘Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls,’ the letter read. The document’s authenticity is unknown. Accompanying it was an FBI request to conduct a handwriting analysis of it.

The latest trove of documents came as part of the DOJ’s response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law passed last month that imposed a 30-day deadline on the department to release all unclassified material related to the cases.

The last batch of documents included several photos of former President Bill Clinton, who was pictured in a pool and hot tub. A woman whose face was redacted was featured in the latter. A Clinton spokesperson responded by demanding the DOJ release all the files and that refusal to do so would confirm the DOJ was ‘not about transparency, but about insinuation.’ The spokesperson noted that Clinton’s name has ‘repeatedly’ been cleared by prosecutors.

The transparency bill allowed the DOJ to withhold information about potential victims and material that could jeopardize open investigations or litigation. Officials could also leave out information ‘in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,’ the bill said. But the bill explicitly directed the DOJ not to redact any details that could be damaging to high-profile and politically connected people.

The file rollout has stirred controversy as critics have aired grievances about over-redactions and the law’s lapsed deadline. Trump signed the bill into law on Nov. 19, meaning the statutory deadline for all the files to be released was Dec. 19. The DOJ has said more files are forthcoming by the new year.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday there was ‘well-settled law’ that supported the DOJ missing the bill’s deadline because of a need to meet other legal requirements, like redacting victim-identifying information.

Bill Mears contributed to this report.

The House Small Business Committee sent a letter this week to the Small Business Administration demanding answers on federal pandemic relief funds that flowed from the Biden administration to entities in Minnesota possibly connected to the massive unfolding fraud scandal.

In a letter sent Monday to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, the committee said it is conducting oversight into reports of fraud and concealment involving the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, both of which were created to help small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter cited public reporting and federal prosecutions tying Minnesota-based nonprofits and individuals to massive fraud schemes that drained hundreds of millions of dollars from federal programs under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s watch.

The letter also points out that the Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future was at the center of what the Justice Department has called the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged in U.S. history, with 78 individuals charged as of late November in a case involving roughly $250 million in fraudulent claims as part of an overall system of fraud that prosecutors said last week could total up to $9 billion or more.

‘The SBA’s COVID lending programs were created to keep small businesses afloat during an unprecedented crisis, not to subsidize fraud,’ Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘Under the Biden-Harris administration, weak oversight and reckless decision-making allowed bad actors to exploit these programs and steal hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. The Feeding Our Future case highlights the severity of these failures, and the Committee on Small Business is determined to hold those responsible accountable.’

The committee’s letter requests detailed records on PPP and EIDL loans issued to dozens of individuals and businesses tied to Minnesota-based fraud investigations, including loan amounts, disbursement dates, forgiveness decisions and internal SBA communications.

Lawmakers are also seeking all documents and communications between the SBA and Walz’s office or Minnesota state agencies during the Biden-Harris administration, arguing such records are necessary to determine whether warning signs were ignored or oversight failed.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Loeffler says she is looking forward to working with Congress to get to the bottom of the situation. 

‘Earlier this month, SBA determined that numerous Somali nonprofits indicted as part of the $1 billion pandemic fraud scandal in Minnesota received PPP and EIDL Loans totaling at least $2.5 million, including Feeding Our Future,’ Loeffler said. 

‘SBA has since broadened its investigation to uncover pandemic-era fraud across the entire state of Minnesota and looks forward to working in partnership with Congressional leaders to uncover the full depth of the abuse and deliver accountability on behalf of American taxpayers.’

The letter asks for the documents to be provided by Jan. 12, 2026.

On Tuesday, Fox News Digital first reported that Loeffler sent a letter to Walz alerting him that her agency will ‘halt’ more than $5.5 million in annual support to resource partners in the state ‘until further notice.’

A Republican lawmaker has reacted to the massive unfolding fraud scandal in Minnesota with legislation aimed at preventing more taxpayer dollars from being wasted at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has introduced the Welfare Abuse and Laundering Zillions Act, or the ‘WALZ Act,’ which would require HHS’ Office of Inspector General to open investigations into any program that sees a 10% or greater increase in total payments over any six-month period within a fiscal year.

Under the bill, HHS would no longer have discretion to ignore sudden billing increases that critics say often signal fraud schemes, particularly in large entitlement programs.

The bill comes amid revelations in recent months that Minnesota’s federally funded health and nutrition programs were rife with fraud to the tune of potentially up to $9 billion, federal prosecutors said last week. 

Critics have made Walz the face of the scandal, given the fact that concerns over the fraud date back to 2019, when he took office and the inability of the state, which he serves as the top executive, to tackle the problem over the last five years.

‘This is on my watch,’ Walz told reporters on Friday. ‘I am accountable for this. And more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.’

Miller-Meeks told Fox News Digital the situation in Minnesota represents a ‘jaw-dropping failure of leadership.’

‘This is what happens when soft-on-crime Democrats run the show: zero accountability, zero oversight and taxpayers left holding the bag,’ the Iowa Republican continued. ‘The WALZ Act is named for a reason, to ensure this level of negligence can never be repeated anywhere else in America. This bill puts hard safeguards in place to protect taxpayer dollars, shut the door on scam artists and bring real accountability back to government programs.’

On Monday, a group of 98 Minnesota mayors raised concerns with state leaders and Walz in a letter about their state’s fiscal policies, saying they have impacted their cities and residents, noting a disappearing $18 billion surplus and a projected $2.9 billion to $3 billion deficit for the 2028-29 biennium.

Former federal prosecutor Joe Teirab, who briefly worked on the Feeding Our Future aspect of the fraud investigation, recently told Fox News Digital the fraud scheme was notable not only for its size, but for how easy it was to carry out.

‘Honestly how easy this fraud was to do,’ Teirab said. ‘These fraudsters were just saying that they were spending all this money on feeding kids… and they were just making up these PDFs, putting false names into Excel sheets.’

Teirab said oversight failures within the Minnesota Department of Education and other agencies played a significant role. He argued that officials had incentives to avoid scrutiny, citing political sensitivities surrounding Minnesota’s Somali community.

‘There were huge incentives to just turn the other way,’ Teirab said. ‘There’s a sense of, ‘If we say something, are they going to call us racist?’ And that’s exactly what happened.’

Fox News Digital’s Nikolas Lanum and Louis Casiano contributed to this report

Tensions are once again boiling in the House GOP after four moderate Republicans joined Democrats in a bid to force a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies that were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘It’s a betrayal to the Republican Party,’ House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said. ‘It basically turned the agenda over to the Democrats.’

‘This is not what people voted for when they voted for a Republican majority,’ he said.

A Democrat-led Congress voted to broaden who can get federally subsidized healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, later voting to extend those subsidies through 2025 the following year.

Congress has now left D.C. until the new year with no plan in place to extend or replace those subsidies, and millions of Americans are now facing heightened healthcare costs in a matter of days.

The majority of Republican lawmakers are opposed to extending those subsidies, calling them a pandemic-era initiative that’s part of an overall broken system.

But several GOP lawmakers have warned that a failure to extend the subsidies, preferably with reforms, would negatively impact people across the country — as well as Republicans headed into a tough re-election year.

Several GOP plans have emerged for another short-term extension to give Congress an off-ramp while they work on a new healthcare plan, but leaders in the House and Senate showed no appetite for taking them up.

The four House Republicans who joined Democrats’ push for a three-year extension — Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Robert Bresnahan, R-Pa., and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa. — have argued that their own leaders left them with no choice but to tack onto a pathway they did not want to support to extend the subsidies.

‘Ultimately, the failure to bring a vote left us with little choice,’ Lawler told reporters last week.

But it’s inflamed tensions with conservatives, threatening an already-unsteady peace in the House GOP’s razor-thin majority.

‘For any Republican to be supportive of Obamacare is really gross and a betrayal to everything that we’ve ever promised voters,’ Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said. ‘I mean, this is the Democrats’ fault. They are the ones who made insurance, health insurance, unaffordable and unreliable.’

She noted that House Republicans did pass a bill with some modest healthcare reforms before they left Washington, but conceded ‘we need to do a lot more.’

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital, ‘I think it’s disappointing — why people would want to bail out Obamacare, I don’t understand.’

‘That discharge petition forces our children to go into greater debt,’ Fine said. ‘We should be focused on destroying Obamacare, not bailing it out.’

A discharge petition is a mechanism for forcing a vote on legislation over the wishes of House leaders, provided it gets support from more than half of the lawmakers in the chamber.

In this case, the four moderates helped House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., clinch a majority of signatures on his petition, setting up a vote early next month.

Lawler criticized Jeffries as ‘not interested in actually solving the problem’ in his comments to reporters last week, however.

‘He wants it to fail so he can use the issue. Otherwise, you would get the bipartisan discharge to move. And that’s the unfortunate thing,’ Lawler said. ‘But my view is, doing nothing is the worst thing. And that’s why Brian Fitzpatrick, myself, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie signed the discharge.’

Meanwhile, Mackenzie said he spoke directly with one of his fellow House Republicans who was critical of their move.

‘I went to him directly and said, ‘I would like to talk to you about your comments.’ I said, ‘I need to explain to you why I voted this way.’ Here’s an anecdote from my district about an individual, a small business owner, a restaurateur. For him and his family, without the premium tax credits, he goes from $3.99 a month up to $9.31 a month, and what that meant for him was that he was going to de-enroll and hope that nothing happened to his family,’ Mackenzie told reporters last week.

‘I said, that is not a great outcome for that individual, so we’re looking for some kind of relief or reform. And when ultimately we had that long conversation with the individual … we came to a much better resolution. We both were more understanding of each other.’

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., did not appear as frustrated as some of his colleagues but predicted ‘it will die in the Senate.’

The House GOP’s healthcare plan, which did not include an extension of the subsidies, passed last week with support from all Republicans, save for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. It got no Democratic ‘yes’ votes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that enacting the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $35.6 billion for a 10-year period through 2035.

If the bill became law, it would also decrease the number of people with health insurance by an average of 100,000 per year between 2027–2035 and lower gross benchmark premium costs by an average 11% through 2035, CBO said.

However, it’s not immediately clear whether it will be taken up by the Senate.